


realized i loved you in the fall

by Lleavingwonderland



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan
Genre: Accidentally Spending The Night, And Other Shenanigans, F/M, Fluff, Getting Together, New Relationship, Post-The Last Olympian (Percy Jackson), Updates to come, aka i write a bunch of self indulgent percabeth vignettes and put them here, now featuring, picnic date in the park
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-26
Updated: 2020-09-04
Packaged: 2021-03-04 00:34:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 6,504
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24924736
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lleavingwonderland/pseuds/Lleavingwonderland
Summary: a collection of shameless Percabeth fluff set after TLO; ft. gratuitously titled chapters from my percabeth playlist. sporadic updates.
Relationships: Annabeth Chase/Percy Jackson
Comments: 23
Kudos: 184





	1. take my hand now (you are the cause of my euphoria)

Annabeth wakes up on August 19th, groggily experiencing the hustle and bustle of the early risers of cabin 6 with an annoyed disinterest before her brain reminds her what happened yesterday—then she’s wide awake. 

The war’s over. The war is actually, finally over. Oh yeah and the small detail that Percy Jackson had actually finally kissed her. Part of her felt that if she moved an inch, if she disturbed the universe by getting out of bed that this insane happily ever after would shatter back into the chaos that had colored the summer so far. Part of her is terrified that despite yesterday she and Percy will fall right back into the distant barbs and discomfort that colored their summer. Annabeth isn’t about avoiding confrontation, and she had never thought of herself as a daydreamer, but she just can’t bring herself to get up.

Then Malcolm is calling for her, reminding her that breakfast is soon, and with it cabin inspection. She gets up, sets about getting herself and the cabin ready to face whatever life is with no war to fight.

Breakfast is an anxious affair where nothing at all has changed on the surface, but everything feels new and sharp. She keeps looking for Percy, then chastising herself. _Temper your expectations, it was just a kiss, after all._

He’s alone at the Poseidon table just like every meal every summer for the past four years. She wishes breakfast were over. She wishes she didn’t feel so much. She wishes she hadn’t been nursing a crush for four years. 

After breakfast breaks up, with Chiron distributing activities schedules to all the head counselors, Annabeth passes hers off to her siblings and goes to find Percy. She’s had enough sword fighting practice for a lifetime.

He’s loitering near his table, staring at his schedule but not really reading it.

“Good morning, Seaweed Brain,” she says.

He looks up, his features rearranging into a smile that’s both overjoyed and self conscious. He runs a hand through his hair. Is he nervous?

“Hey. Did you get a schedule?”

“I passed it off,” she says. “What do you have?”

“Apparently canoeing.”

“Ah,” she says, feeling like the thorny distance she was so afraid of is right on the doorstep and setting back in. “You want company? It’s kinda hard to canoe by yourself.”

Percy laughs at that, and they meander over to the canoe lake in the quickly warming morning sunlight. The only thing she’s thinking about is the fact that yesterday they kissed at the bottom of this exact lake, and she wonders if Percy is thinking about the same thing. She wonders why neither of them is saying anything about it now. 

They stop on the shore as Percy pulls one of the canoes down into the water. He hesitates when their hands touch as she takes an oar from him, and finally she can’t take it anymore. They fought so much during the summer what’s the worst that could happen? Once the canoe is out in the water, she turns around to face him and drops her oar in the bottom of the boat.

“Are we not going to talk about what happened yesterday?”

“You mean—“

“I mean when we kissed twice and got thrown in the lake.”

“And not the part where we almost died?”

“And when you turned down godhood?”

“And when you got made architect of Olympus?”

She has to smile. Her life is impossible. “Gods…”

“But about…the other thing,” His eyes flit to her then away, he runs his hand through his hair. “We didn’t get to talk after. And I meant to ask you—“

“Yeah?” She feels a swoop in her stomach. The sunlight is so bright.

“Do you want to go out? Like—with me. Do you want to be my girlfriend?”

A quiet laugh escapes her—at how nervous he is, out of sheer relief, at the impossibility of it all. She grins down at her hands. “Yeah,” she says, feeling like all the sunshine of the summer morning is also glowing, bright and warm in her chest. 

“Yeah?” He’s grinning now too.

“Yes, I do.” She says again, because she does and she can. And just like that her expectations are no longer tempered. Because it wasn’t just a kiss. It’s something else. It’s the start of…something.

Back on the dock Annabeth’s pulse surges when she takes Percy’s hand, he looks down at their hands and up into her eyes and smiles the same goofy smile that she’s been crushing on for far too long. 

“Can I kiss you?” he asks.

She nods and he does. His lips are warm, and they fit there, against her mouth. She thinks about the first time she kissed him, last summer in the heart of Mt St Helens, surrounded by boiling lava, both of them covered in sweat, lips cracked from the heat. It had been urgent and terrified and brave in a way she hadn’t been able to match afterward. Not like yesterday, not like this—this slow kiss on the lake shore that revels in being alive and having not just a present but a future.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> fic title from Back to December by Taylor Swift, because how else am I going to relive the full 2011 percabeth experience
> 
> and chapter title from euphoria by bts ^_^


	2. de extrañarte estoy acostumbrado (pero yo quiero tenerte a mi lado)

It’s a Friday night in September and by virtue of it being a Friday night Annabeth is at Percy’s place, and by virtue of it being September they’re alone in his room. It’s sticky hot and the air conditioning unit in his window is wheezing in a futile attempt to cool the ancient building.

Percy’s eyes are half closed but one of his hands absentmindedly twirls the strands of her hair that came loose from her messy bun, the other is immobilized underneath her, but keeping her close. She’s not sure why this moment feels so breakable to her, she’s seen him asleep dozens of times as she kept watch on quests. She knows his stillness and the way his breaths come. She knows how he looks between when his eyes open and he remembers where he is. Based on those facts alone, watching Percy sleep shouldn’t be quite this special. Maybe it’s because she’s never witnessed it from where she is now: falling asleep herself, her head on his chest, his war-calloused fingers touching her in such a casual and tender way.

They had initially at least had the pretense of watching a movie on his laptop, but it ended hours ago. Then the laptop had been shut and lost in the floor in the interest of other pursuits, like tasting each others lips over and over again. Percy is the only person Annabeth has ever kissed, and it’s still something that she hasn’t gotten used to. Part of him is still so hesitant, like he’s afraid that suddenly Annabeth will stop wanting to kiss him. It’s an impossible thought to her, but it keeps her with an incentive to remind him how she feels: constantly taking his hand, pulling him closer, kissing him hello, kissing him every time he smiles at her and it makes her feel like there’s sunshine inside her chest. 

The clock on the nightstand says 1:12am. She’s certain that Percy’s parents are asleep by now. The only sounds aside from the asthmatic air conditioner are distant cars in the street five floors below, and the muffled vague voices of a neighbor’s late night TV playing. That, and their own breathing. The stillness of it all is mesmerizing, the feeling that they are the only two people in the world, the rest is just background noise. 

One of her hands rests idly on his stomach. She hadn’t really meant to spend the night. The sensible part of her thinks she should find it in herself to pull away from him and grab her purse and her shoes and tiptoe out. She thinks vaguely about the homework she has to do over the weekend, but it feels like someone else’s school, someone else’s classes. Someone else can do all that. Annabeth just wants to keep laying here. She’s also keenly aware that she wasn’t invited to spend the night, she doesn’t want to impose on the Jackson’s Saturday. And, as welcoming as Sally is, she’s not sure she wants to push her boundaries, or see her awkwardly in the morning and have Sally assume things. ‘We just fell asleep’ sounds lame, even to Annabeth, even if it’s the truth. Under other circumstances it wouldn’t matter what her new boyfriend’s mom thinks of her, but she respects Sally, and she wants her to like her. She wants to prove that she’s…what? Responsible? A good girlfriend? Not a bad influence? Annabeth is used to wanting approval from adults and authority figures and not getting it. She wants Sally to be different, to like her.

She closes her eyes and steels herself, allowing herself one last indulgent minute of being held, then slowly sits up. She sees her bag and her shoes in the doorway. Percy’s arm is still loosely around her waist. It’s time to go, Annabeth, she chides herself. She leans down and presses a kiss to Percy’s temple, because she can, then stands up and steps across the room. She has one of her shoes on when—

“Annabeth?” Percy’s focus is still soft, barely awake.

“I didn’t mean to wake you,” she whispers.

“Are you leaving?” He sits up, feet dragging the blanket to the floor.

“Yeah, it’s late. I should get back.”

“Stay,” he whispers, “You shouldn’t walk back this late.”

She walks back over to the bed. He loops his arms around her waist, she rests her hands on his shoulders. Wanting nearly eats her alive. The concept of staying, of eating breakfast, of spending a lazy Saturday here, she savors the idea like something she’s not allowed to have.

Percy, still drowsy, rests his head on her chest. “Please stay.”

“What about your mom?” she asks, still grasping at her quickly retreating sensibility. 

“She won’t mind,” he promises. “I’ll just tell her it was too late for you to go back. She would kill me if I let you walk home in the middle of the night.”

In the darkness of the room she’s once again struck with the feeling that they are the last two people in the world. There’s no reason to leave, there’s nothing outside to go to. The universe is contained within these brick and plaster walls, in the shrinking space between them and their shared breaths.

“Please,” he says, again.

She tilts his head up, hands in his hair, and kisses him again. “Ok,” she says, smiling against his skin.

They both fit in his bed but only just, they’re both on their sides, facing each other, hands idly linked between them.

They’re both used to always being on guard, expecting an attack at any second. It seems impossible now though, Annabeth feels safe. She feels too tired to do much more than lay still and breathe, her eyelids flickering closed. Percy reaches up and brushes a finger across her forehead.

“What?” she asks.

He just shakes his head, smiling.

She pokes him with her free hand, grinning, “What is it? Tell me.”

They’re both quietly laughing, now, poking each other. 

“Tell me.”

His face turns suddenly, like he’s serious, or self conscious. His eyes flicker away, then back to hers. He’s inches away, she doesn’t so much hear his breathing hitch as feel it. She can feel his heartbeat.

“What’s wrong?” She furrows her brow, now worried.

He brings her hand to his mouth, presses a kiss to her knuckles. “Nothing,” he says. “I’m just lucky.”

She feels it again. The sunshine in her chest. She feels lightweight. Annabeth isn’t a lucky person. She had never experienced good luck, and had been forced out of her father’s house because even as a child she brought quite the opposite. 

She feels lucky to be with Percy. Somehow it’s still strange for her to believe anyone would feel that way about her, even Percy. But he’s here and he does. She’s too tired to try to match his words, she just nestles her head on his shoulder and lets her eyes close, like this is something she might be able to keep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter title from 'no te vayas' by camilo. (roughly translates: i'm used to missing you but i want you next to me)


	3. the beautiful kind, making up for lost time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> this is my emotional support rewrite of ‘the staff of hermes’ in which there's no staff, no hermes, and no uncomfortable undertones in the portrayal of their relationship. here there is just a picnic in the park and communication skills. enjoy!

Their one month anniversary comes in a weird way that somehow feels both like 

_it’s been a month already?!_

and 

_we’ve definitely been together for way longer_.

September 18th falls on a Tuesday—not exactly conducive to any kind of celebration for two high school students. 

“We should go out this weekend to celebrate,” Annabeth had suggested ahead of time.

“What should we do?”

“Hey, I baked the cake and picked the venue last month, this is your turn!” 

Percy protests weakly that he’s terrible at planning things. Annabeth knows that’s probably true, but it doesn’t really matter to her. 

She calls him on the day, laying on a bench outside her dorm so as to avoid the irritated gaze of her roommate throughout the conversation. 

“So,” Percy muses, “rating of this month, scale of one to ten.”

“That’s a tough one.” She laughs even as she tries to deadpan. “I’d say an 8.5, definitely above being chased across the country by supernatural beings, so better than most of my months in the past decade.”

“But with room for improvement.”

She gets quiet for a minute and says, “Always,” then realizes there are too many ways that could be taken wrong and she corrects herself. “For instance if I didn’t have to take American lit? Then it would be a 10.”

“An 85 is better than most of my grades, so I’ll take it for now. Though I definitely can’t help the American lit situation.”

“So where are you taking me Friday?” she asks, mostly to get her mind onto things more hopeful than her abysmal recent past and even worse homework assignments.

“It’s a surprise.”

Annabeth audibly groans—she hates surprises. 

“I mean—it’s not,” he cuts himself off. “It’s not that exciting of a surprise. Like… don’t…Yeah, never mind.”

Annabeth doesn’t like how nervous he sounds—not that he’s not cute as hell when he’s trying to impress her, but it’s a one month anniversary, not a damn proposal. “Well as long as it doesn’t involve gods, monsters or school—“

“Gods, no,” he says quickly.

“Then I’m excited.”

He has to go eat dinner, so Annabeth drags herself off the bench and into the culinary horror show that is her boarding school’s cafeteria.

Friday afternoon after her classes end, Annabeth changes out of her oppressively polyester school uniform and meets Percy outside. He still hadn’t offered any clues to the evenings plans, just said he’d meet her at her school. So, she meets him on the sidewalk outside and kisses him hello.

They saw each other on Saturday, but it somehow still feels like it’s been too long. She smiles, grins, despite herself—she hadn’t had a particularly bad day, but it’s always better once she’s back with Percy again.

He’s smiling, too. “I would have brought flowers, but—“

“I would forget about them and kill them,” she supplies. Annabeth might be more of a romantic than she expected, but she just doesn’t have the temperament or memory to be a flower person.

“Yeah, you would,” he laughs.

They start off walking, Annabeth taking his hand without looking, lacing their fingers together. “So, what’s the plan?”

“Pizza—picnic in the park.”

Truth be told she’s not sure what kind of expectations Percy had set for himself—not only does Annabeth love pizza and picnics, but this will also be the closest thing to a real date they’ve been on. In the chaos of camp and school and moving they’d done a lot of hanging out, some long meandering walks through the city with stops at fast food places, but never a planned something like this. 

For someone who claimed to be terrible at planning things, he’s brought a backpack with a blanket and had already ordered their food. Not only that, but he got everything right, down to Annabeth’s choice of fizzy drink and pizza toppings. 

They pitch their blanket at a spot in central park near Belvedere castle, a bit of a walk, but worth it for the view—something Percy also had to plan and know Annabeth would love. She hadn’t even known the place existed before, having done most of her exploring of the city during a war, she hadn’t been on the lookout for architecture and amazing views of the skyline. 

“This is amazing, Percy,” she says as they’re splitting up the food. “Really.”

“I know it’s not much,” he counters, which feels ridiculous to Annabeth.

“You realize I don’t care about that, right? This is seriously amazing. You have put my efforts to shame.” 

“I just want everything to be perfect for you,” he says, suddenly earnest in a way that disarms Annabeth. 

She knows that when he says perfect he’s thinking about what they do and where they go—boyfriend/girlfriend stuff. But Annabeth is thinking about how Percy is and has been her closest friend, how at every step of the way he keeps demonstrating that he really knows her and isn’t just putting on airs, how she’s been so desperately alone for so long and looking for something, something. How she doesn’t know what exactly that is, but she’ll know when she’s found it, and how the happiness that feels like sunshine in her chest whenever she kisses him or even sees his name on her phone screen feels like the start of that something. But that feels too big to say, and she doesn’t know if it would make sense anyway. She reaches for his hand across the blanket and says something else true instead.

“Percy, I started crushing on you when we were twelve, in the back of a semi truck full of zoo animals. I don’t need everything to be perfect. I need you.” 

“Well, here I am,” he says, squeezing her hand.

“Then, listen to me: this is perfect.” 

He smiles then, like he actually believes her. 

They linger there all evening—catching up, talking about everything and nothing, looking at videos on Annabeth’s phone—until finally the late summer sun finally decides to go down, painting the city skyline pink and red and purple. She finds herself thinking, not just once, as she lays lazily on a picnic blanket next to her boyfriend in the warm afternoon, that she wants to stay like this for a very long time. Or at least do things like this again and again. It feels quite freeing to not be under the supervision of school staff or parents, or even surrounded by campers, or under the deadline of a quest, but to just be out in the world alone. Being alone and free is amazing, but being able to turn holding Percy’s hand into an abrupt game of thumb war and bicker like second graders is even better. 

After, they roll the blanket back up and with much reluctance make the trek back to Annabeth’s dorm. 

“I loved today,” Annabeth says. “We have to do it again.”

“Definitely,” Percy agrees, then, “Shit I almost forgot,” he mutters to himself, hands deep in his pockets looking for something.

He pulls out a tiny drawstring bag and hands it to Annabeth, then runs a tentative hand through his hair. He’s actually blushing. “Pretend I didn’t forget about this, happy one month.”

She pries the bag open with her fingers and shakes its contents into her palm: a small red pendant. 

“It’s from my father’s coral gardens, outside his palace.”

“It’s beautiful,” she says, quietly, turning it over and over in her fingers. She’s not sure why this of all things in the night so far makes her throat tight like tears, so she closes it in her fist and pulls him into a tight hug. “Thank you.”

“See, now you have a whole month to plan and try and one up me,” he whispers back, grinning.

Annabeth laughs out loud. “Oh don’t make this into a competition, you will _so_ lose.”

He just kisses her good night. 

As soon as she gets back into her room she pulls off her necklace and threads it on alongside a decade’s worth of camp beads and her father’s college ring. It’s new, but it’s a part of her now with the rest of her history, sitting close to her heart. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the pendant is as referenced in MoA ch 13. || chap title from everything has changed by miss swift. 
> 
> also thank you thank you thank you to everyone who has left kudos/reviews/bookmarks! this is my first multi chapter fic so my heart is very full


	4. i want you (bless my soul)

The thing about a high school relationship is while it’s Percy And Annabeth, it’s also very rarely just them. At camp there were always friends around and during the school year nearly all their time together is spent at Percy’s apartment, which means Percy’s parents. Well, his mother and step-dad. But they’re very much a ‘parental unit’ even if neither of them is the sort of parent that Annabeth is used to.

Annabeth’s prior experience with adults looks mostly like Chiron, who (being both an immortal and a centaur) is not exactly a blueprint for a father figure—that and the fact that he never set out to parent her, he was running an entire camp. Then there was Annabeth’s mother—the harsh and demanding goddess—who Annabeth had seen less than a dozen times in her entire life. And her step mother—unlike Percy’s laid back and familiar step father, her step mother had never really been anything warmer than neutral towards her. Annabeth tended to take it as a win if she wasn’t openly antagonistic. Her dad has to be the biggest contrast though. Despite various attempts from both sides over the years, their relationship never got past tumultuous. No matter what well meaning but ill-informed observers said, it was impossible to overcome the level of neglect that led a seven year old to run away and not come home for six years. They had settled into an estranged but functional agreement: he pays her tuition and puts money into her account. There’s not much of a relationship there, she’s starting to think there might never be. It’s just another thing that doesn’t make a lot of sense. It’s all very complicated: some days it hurts, some days she never even thinks about him.

So it’s hard for her to fit Percy’s family apartment into her worldview. She always feels like at some point she will have spoken once too often or too loud or show up uninvited or overstay her welcome and the veneer will shatter. But it’s been weeks and, impossibly, she hasn’t seen anything to validate those fears.

It’s a Wednesday afternoon in early October and the air feels more like chilly mist than anyone would like when Percy calls Annabeth.

“Are you coming over?”

She sighs, and stares down at the chaotic ink splotches in her planner. She wants to. “Aren’t your parents going to get sick of me hanging around all the time?”

The truth is that her visits to the Jackson-Blofis apartment, formerly reserved for Friday evenings and weekends, had somehow recently become a near daily occurrence. She was midway through the semester and six weeks into a new relationship. She had, however, dodged and declined invitations and implications the past few days because of just that—his parents, who, while they had never given any outward indication of displeasure at her presence, she was nevertheless nervous about presuming upon.

He laughs. Then theres the awkward silence where he has to realize she was being serious. “You’re kidding right, Annabeth? My mom loves you. I think she likes you more than me.”

“Now that’s impossible and you know it.”

He laughs again, self conscious. “Seriously, she doesn't care.”

“I just don't want to…impose.” Impose is such a proper word. A polite word. A grown up word. She tries it out, feeling like a child.

“You don't have to come if you don't want to,” he says quickly. “but I like it when you come over. And my mom doesn't care.”

 _Not all homes are like yours, Annabeth. Not all children are considered underfoot, Annabeth. You're practically adults, Annabeth._ “What would we even do?”

“Homework. Watch TV. Literally anything.”

“Ok” she says, smiling into her gloved hand. There it is again, the sunshine feeling that is somehow always not far behind a conversation with Percy. ‘ _Anything_ ’ he just wants her there. She wants to be there and he wants her there. What a remarkable coincidence. “Ok”

In all reality it’s way too early in the season for it to already be this cold, but New York weather rarely complies with logic. Annabeth wraps herself in a coat and a scarf and takes the train to Percy’s place. It’s more familiar now, the sort-of-broken buzzer at the door and the long trek up five flights of stairs. New York is still just a place that Annabeth lives, not a place she feels like she belongs. People ask where she’s from and she’s never sure how to answer: family from Boston, raised in Virginia, grew up on Long Island, spent some time in San Francisco, moved to New York City.

Annabeth can learn how to ride the subway and walk the organized street grid of downtown, but she doesn’t make sense here the way that Percy does. The way he makes sense in this apartment and in the parks and sidewalks of New York.

The way he never really talks about moving away when he’s older.

Annabeth can’t imagine loving some place so much she’d want to stay there the rest of her life. But she wants to. Well, she wonders what it would feel like to want to. And that’s almost wanting.

She’s sixteen years old and not a terrible lot makes sense.

What does make sense is how she feels when Percy folds her into a hug in the doorway of his apartment, warm after the cold walk over. It makes sense, so she clings to it, and tries not to think about the rest.

Paul isn’t home yet and Percy and Sally are in the middle of making dinner. When she had first met him, Annabeth would never have guessed Percy was a competent cook, but he takes after his mom. The apartment smells like garlic and simmering meat, making her even hungrier than she already was. Three’s a crowd in Percy’s kitchen, so she takes a seat at the table while he and his mom continue in a complicated dance of ‘behind you’ and ‘check the sauce’ and ‘can you grab that knife, no the other one’. Annabeth knows how to operate the microwave and sink in her dorm’s community kitchenette; it’s about the extent of her culinary skills. Food has never really struck Annabeth as more than necessary fuel, but in the Jackson house mealtimes are both an event and a labor of love. 

It’s something she loves to be caught up in, even as a court side observer. It’s another thing about Percy that’s just enchanting. It makes her want to stay, endears her to the process.

The days end obscenely early—sunset casts the apartment into grays just after six and the lights come on, shifting evening to a cozy night. After dinner Sally sits in the living room, typing away at her computer—a manuscript for her first novel. They end up going to Percy’s room—ostensibly to do homework. Annabeth, full of good intentions and delusions of honor roll grandeur, slouches cross legged on Percy’s bed staring at curse disguised as a Physics word problem. Percy sits at his cluttered desk tapping out an English essay on a school issued tablet. At some point looking around and trying to conceive of the energy operating in this problem turned into watching Percy at work, studying the hunch of his shoulders and the halting way he approaches the keyboard, the neat knot of his camp necklace peeking out above his t-shirt collar and his mess of dark hair and—

“Annabeth?”

“Huh?”

“Are you literally just staring at me?”

“Maybe. Probably not.”

“Why?” he gestures grandly to himself. “See something you like?”

She throws a pillow at him. “Please.”

He gets up to return it and stands over her smirking.

“What?” she demands, trying not to smile and failing.

He leans an inch from her face and says in a ridiculous voice “Wait, Annabeth, do you like like me?”

“Maybe.”

“Oh my god,” he whispers. “that is so embarrassing.”

“You fucking dork,” she says, and pushes herself up on her knees until she has him in a kiss.

He just laughs, flops down on the bed next to her. “You love it.”

And she does, which is why she drags her feet like none other at nine o’clock when she’s flirting with her dorm’s curfew and she has to wrap back up in her coat and scarf and shoulder her backpack and follow Percy to the door of the apartment.

Annabeth says goodbye to Sally and thanks her for dinner. Sally says it was a pleasure and tells her to take care.

She stalls in the doorway, her hand idly on the knob, to kiss Percy quickly on the cheek.

But he pulls her in and kisses her again and _—_ oh _._ She doesn’t ever want it to stop. And suddenly the enormity of the moment threatens to burst inside her, it doesn’t stop swelling even after he pulls away and sweetly says “good night”.

His hands are still at a comfortable place on her hips. She can feel the pressure of his fingers through three layers of clothing, it’s no different than a dozen times when he kissed her before.

She says “good night”, too.

His hands disappear from her hips when she opens the door. She feels the phantoms of them the whole way home. The city seems bright and lit up at angles she’s never seen before. Her mind is buzzing with something—with substantial four letter words like _home_ , like _love_. She wonders if this is what being in love feels like. If so, she thinks, this isn’t near as terrifying as people paint it out to be. It’s just loud and good and racing through her and she feels like smiling and she never wants it to stop.


	5. i wanna scream i love you from the top of my lungs (but im afraid that someone else will hear me)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> title from the (shipped) gold standard by fall out boy

They’re on a FaceTime call in October. It’s three in the morning. Annabeth has to be awake because she’s editing an essay and Percy is trying to stay up with her as a show of solidarity. She’s two Red Bulls in and has her phone propped up next to her laptop. That's another good thing about ADHD: neither of them has any trouble multitasking. The problem is that the two tasks Percy is trying to do simultaneously are talk to Annabeth and sleep. It’s not going quite as well as Annabeth’s essay. His room is dark, his face lit by the screen of his phone, bright with the background lighting of Annabeth’s dorm room.

“Just go to bed, Percy. I’ll finish this and we can talk tomorrow.” No response. “Percy.” No response. “Ok, Percy, I’m going. Good night”

“Love you," he mumbles, face half visible.

Annabeth briefly stops breathing, not sure how to respond. He doesn’t say anything else, so neither does she. Just says “Go to sleep” in a slightly weirder voice than she had aimed for and quietly ends the call.

Part of her feels shitty for not saying it back. Part of her thinks he’s not even awake he will not remember and/or pass future judgment based on this exchange. She abandons the essay in short order, sitting cross-armed and deep in concentration in her chair.

Why does it matter this much? It matters because until now it went unsaid. Until now it was nameless feelings and unarticulated devotion. To Annabeth, love is much more a promise than a feeling. She’s had people—Luke, her father—give her love in words and abandonment in actions. She doesn’t want to be that kind of hypocrite. The issue isn’t that Annabeth doesn’t feel love, her affection for Percy is something big and bright and near tangible. It’s the feeling of sunshine in her chest and the way half the time they can barely kiss because they’re smiling. She gives her affection away in hugs and touches and lingering kisses. Annabeth doesn’t want to say ‘I love you’ if it’s not a promise she is prepared to keep.

She tries it out in the too bright light of her empty bedroom: “I love you.”

The words come easily, but somehow feel heavy.

_Is it true?_ she asks herself. There’s no hesitation when she thinks, _yes_.

It’s always been true. At least, for her. It’s hard to reflect on events from the outside, but she knows that all of her affection and feelings for Percy had been bottled up tightly and stored away in the past year as she tried and failed to prepare herself for the eventuality of the prophecy. She also remembers a single night maybe five days after the eruption at Mount St. Helens, where she skipped supper, sick with worry and grief and sat sobbing on her bunk because she was terrified of this. She was terrified that she might love someone and the second she got brave enough to show it, he had died.

Annabeth always tried so hard to project the image she created for herself: her mother’s daughter. Wise, strong, intelligent, aloof, divorced from the baser elements of fear and love, like her mother. But, the past summer and fall she had watched that image crumble and learned that it was alright for her to feel strong insane emotions, she was allowed to fall in love and be scared because she was a teenager, not a goddess.

Annabeth knows that maybe it didn’t have to mean this much, a whispered ‘I love you’ on a phone call, but it did. To her. Because now all of this _stuff_ inside her that she kept thinking ‘I don’t have words for’ has words. Whether or not she chose to use them, she knows they’re true.

It feels a bit insane to keep your feelings a secret from someone you love, who in all actuality probably loves you too. Annabeth knows that. She just cant really help it. She sees Percy the next day and he says “You’re looking at me weird. What is it?” and she thinks, “I love you,” but it sticks in her throat so she just shrugs and shakes her head. And again when she’s walking out of his apartment after dinner, “Bye, I’ll see you on Saturday, right?” _right_. “Text me when you get home ok.” _ok. I love you_. But she can’t at the last minute.

Love and fear—constant companions.

She knows, mentally, that there’s no reason to rush into saying it. That it won’t change the way she feels or acts, and that’s what makes love real anyway, so it doesn’t matter if it’s there and unspoken. But somehow she convinces herself that she should tell him this weekend. Which is October 18th. Which is their two month anniversary. She was placed in charge of planning, and true to form she disappoints her heritage and reputation, but not her ADHD tendencies, and procrastinates any actual planning until the last minute. By now it’s fairly chilly in New York, along with wind and rain most days, so she’s hard pressed to attempt to duplicate Percy’s date for them in September. Besides they’d done it once more since when the weather was still better and it had been just as perfect. A third time in the rain might ruin the picnic’s charm, she thinks reasonably. Despite his teasing, she has no actual intention to attempt to upstage Percy—and two month anniversaries aren’t generally highly celebrated affairs. At least, she assumes they aren’t. She’s sure her friends from the Aphrodite cabin might beg to differ, but there’s a reason she’s never consulted any of them.

She calls Percy the night before, not for any special reason, just because they tend to call to each other at strange hours. He’s coughing slightly and his voice is shot.

“Percy, are you sick?”

“No, it’s just a cold,” he insists, then coughs again.

So, she shows up to his apartment after school on Friday with a bag full of Chinese takeout—soup, noodles, spring rolls, dumplings, the works. “I figured this might do better than us going out.”

He never admits to feeling bad, but he agrees to that much at least. So they sit on the couch with the tv on but muted because a mention of homework starts a discussion about the flaws in private school world history curricula.

It’s just easy, Annabeth thinks. She’s sitting on the Jacksons’ couch in leggings and a hoodie, Percy’s in sweats, both their legs are under the same blanket that Percy swears is older than he is. It’s not perfectly romantic because it doesn’t have to be, but Annabeth feels more like she is at home than she ever has before. There’s comfort here. There’s love here, even if Percy won’t kiss her because he doesn’t want to get her sick.

It’s late. Percy’s asleep on the couch. “Hey, I love you,” she whispers, so faintly it’s more like a breath. Her heart surges a little bit, because hey, she said it. But she only knows she managed it because there’s deniability. He’s still asleep. She’s still safe. It’s still unspoken.

She curls up next to him on a sofa that definitely was not meant to fit two full size almost-adults, so she wraps her arms around his chest and keeps him that close when she falls asleep.

They wake up sometime between four and five. He turns his head to look at her and says, “I’m hungry”

“Me, too”

“Pancakes?” he says.

Annabeth laughs, because it’s five in the morning on a Saturday, but she can’t deny the appeal.

So they go around the corner into the kitchen and try as stealthily as possible to sort out pans and the stove and negotiate making pancake batter all without waking up Percy’s mom and stepdad.

Annabeth is as much a problem as the banging kitchenware because she cant seem to stop laughing. She keeps laughing because it’s five in the morning and she’s making pancakes with her boyfriend in his mom’s apartment and its absurd and it's wonderful and she’s not awake enough to ruin it with complex ruminations on the nature of love.

She smears batter on his cheek. He whisper-cheers when she perfectly flips one. She whisper-cheers even louder when he flips one right out of the pan onto the floor.

She claps her hands over her mouth to stifle her laughter when Percy opens the fridge and emerges with not only syrup but also a bag of chocolate chips and a can of whipped cream.

It’s an unmitigated disaster. It’s perfect.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...anyway stream dynamite https://youtu.be/gdZLi9oWNZg


End file.
